Did I still love him?
Yes. The truth of who he was didn’t alter that.
Then what was I going to do about this?
How was I going to react to my boyfriend being the freaking emperor of the entire Titan empire?
The most powerful figure in the entire galaxy?
Just putting it like that tore a laugh from my throat, fringed heavily with madness.
And yes, perhaps maybe I had gone a little bit insane.
Had I imagined what I’d seen in the great hall?
Had that scene really happened?
Had I lost my mind somewhere in the forest?
With the rollercoaster of terror and excitement, it was only a natural reaction.
That was it, I decided. I had lost my mind.
Fiath wasn’t the Titan emperor.
He couldn’t be.
The door hissed open and revealed Fiath.
Behind him were his Titan chieftains. They thumped a fist to their chests and left.
Fiath entered the room and the door slid shut behind him.
Suddenly, the room felt tiny.
There was no escape. Nowhere for me to run.
Fiath strode toward me. He immediately fell to his knees before me.
The emperor of the freakin’ Titan empire had fallen to his knees in front of me!
He took my hands in his and kissed them.
“I’m sorry you discovered the truth this way,” he said. “It was not my intention to shock you.”
“So, it’s true?” I gasped. “You are him. The emperor?”
“I am.”
The world twisted again and I felt a little dizzy.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” I said in a voice much softer than I intended.
“Would it have helped?” he said. “An emperor is nothing without his empire. It couldn’t have helped us but it could have hindered us. It could have made us much bigger targets. The Changelings would never stop hunting me down. They want me killed and they almost succeeded.”
“What does that make me? Am I your concubine?”
Fiath smiled and kissed my lips again.
“It makes you the woman I love,” he said.
“Is there anything else you want to tell me? I said. “Any other little secrets?”
“None. Except for the fact I’m head over heels in love with you.”
Okay, so that made me smile.
He reached up and kissed me on my cheek.
“What happens now?” I said.
“First, they want to give me better rooms to live in,” he said.
“Well, that’s a nice perk.”
“We won’t be here for long. We have to plan our attack. When we do, we’ll wipe the Changelings off the face of this planet and a thousand others before the week is out.”
Wow. It was pretty hot to be dating someone so powerful.
He drew me to my feet and we embraced. Then I wagged a finger at him.
“Don’t think I’m going to fall to my knees every time you come into the room.”
I gave him a wink.
“Except when I want to,” I said.
He hugged me again.
I was now dating an emperor.
This was sure going to make buying gifts difficult.
Fiath
I marched down the long winding tunnels toward the war room. Today, we would be making plans for how we would strike back at the Changelings on this planet.
Titans going about their business stopped in their tracks and immediately dropped to their knees and prostrated themselves, taking up too much space and making it difficult to step past them.
I would have to speak with the chieftains about encouraging the Titans not to bow to me. Not when we were preparing for war.
My life had returned to normal. It both made me happy, as it was a return to what I was used to, and sad at the same time.
The difference was Hazel by my side.
I meant what I asked her the previous day in the great hall before I revealed myself. If she wanted to leave right then and there, I would never have looked back. I would have taken her to the farthest reaches of the galaxy where no Titan lived.
We could have lived out our lives anonymously. I was already dead in the minds of every Titan. What difference did it matter?
All I needed was her.
Instead, she had chosen another route. For us to make a stand and fight our conquerors. The best way for me to do that was to reveal who I was and become the beacon I was born to be.
My honor guard consisted of the strongest, most well-trained Titans of each clan.
I would have much preferred a group of friends who’d fought side-by-side with each other through many battles. They would fight not just to protect me, but each other.
It was a stark reminder that they did not answer me. They answered to their chieftains. I wondered what they would tell their leaders. Would they act as spies? Would they do what was best for the empire? Or for themselves?
I had already witnessed several angry glances between my honor guard members. The only thing keeping them from attacking each other was the dishonor they would bring to their tribe if they acted on their baser instincts.
Why could they not get it into their thick skulls? We were not going to survive if we failed to work together.
We approached a door built into the solid flint of the mountain. A member of my guard took position on either side of the war room door.
Inside, the other two soldiers took position inside the room.
And I thought about Garrick, the chief of the emperor’s guard in the palace. He might just be the only honest member of the upper echelons of power in the palace.
Had Garrick known about chief advisor Slak?
I shook my head. Easier to believe the Sun would stop shining, the planets stop revolving. He was a man of duty and honor. It was more likely my own arm would turn against me than him.
I entered the war room. The four chieftains immediately stopped bickering and dropped to their knees in supplication.
“Rise,” I said. “In fact, I don’t want you or anyone else to bow to me in the Fallen Temple. We have work to do and we can’t afford to waste it with idle tradition.”
“But sir,” A’nshon said, his eye scar
